Note 06 — Chapter V · IN WHICH DESPATCHES FROM ADMIRAL WATSON REACH CALCUTTA.

After a second short rest comes the season for going abroad. One may go fishing or fowling on the river, walk in the park called the Loll Baug,[06] and listen to the band of music that plays beside the great tank or pond, ride out in a chaise or a palanqueen, or take the air in a budgero; and there’s continual parties made to spend the evening in some garden at a little distance from the town, whether that of the Armenians, or Surman’s, or those of two rich Gentoos, called Omy Chund and Govinderam Metre, close to the Morattoe-ditch. Sometimes I am called to attend Mrs Freyne to an outcry, which in Britain would be styled a sale by auction, either of the goods of some deceased person or of a parcel of toys which have been brought from China or the great islands by some gentleman travelling on the Company’s occasions. This last is what pleases me best, for it seems to me sadly unfeeling to go bidding for the possessions of a person to whom you may have been talking two days before without a thought of sickness, far less death; but every one here cares infinitely more for the commonest Europe goods than for the most delicate toys from the East. This I could not understand; but one day Miss Dorman came to visit me, and found me setting up in my chamber the things I had bought with a handful of rupees which my papa was so good as to throw into my lap, knowing that I could not bring myself to write a chitt for the value, as is always done in Calcutta.